


Double-D With ESP

by freudensteins_monster



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. References, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers - Freeform, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Awesome Darcy Lewis, Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, But feel free to ship whoever you like, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Darcy is psychic, Fortune Telling, Gen, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis Friendship, Loosely follows movie plots, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Nightmares, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Civil War (Marvel), Psychic Abilities, Psychic Darcy, Tarot, Thor - Freeform, Thor: The Dark World, no official ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-06-09 14:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 19,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6911620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freudensteins_monster/pseuds/freudensteins_monster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy Lewis was kind of psychic. But not in a see the future, talk to your dead father, tell you the winning lotto numbers kind of way. She jokingly referred to it as her ‘spidey-sense’, this feeling that crept up her spine that told her to turn left instead of right, to not trust the drink (or the guy that gave it to her), to stop walking just as a door was being thrown open in front of her. She would admit, under duress, that it came in handy from time to time, but never put in any effort into honing it, lest she turn out like the other psychics in her family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. DARCY

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a Sick Sad World segment: “Psychic Centerfolds. What happens when Miss September can see November? She’s a Double-D with ESP. Coming up next on Sick, Sad World.”
> 
> I've had this one my computer collecting dust for a few months now. It's 'almost' finished. Let me know what you think/if you want to read more as it may help me get this wrapped up :P
> 
> *amended to a beta'd version 21/5/16*

Darcy Lewis was kind of psychic. But not in a see the future, talk to your dead father, tell you the winning lotto numbers kind of way. She jokingly referred to it as her ‘spidey-sense’, this feeling that crept up her spine that told her to turn left instead of right, to not trust the drink (or the guy that gave it to her), to stop walking just as a door was being thrown open in front of her. She would admit, under duress, that it came in handy from time to time, but never put in any effort into honing it, lest she turn out like the other psychics in her family.

Her grandmother, Iris, had told fortunes in her front room for almost fifty years. Her customers took and took and took, and when she told them something they didn’t want to hear they raised hell. She had died destitute and alone, shunned by the townsfolk she had devoted her life to helping, leaving her most prized possession to her granddaughter: a gorgeous deck of black and gold tarot cards ([x](http://moonandtrees.tumblr.com/post/100754074616)). Darcy kept them in a safety deposit box in Virginia and tried not to think about them.

Her mother, Joanne, had gone to the dark side early on and the only time Darcy ever saw her nowadays was on the psychic network, dangling hope in front of desperate people in order to separate them from their hard-earned money.

So Darcy didn’t want to be _really_ psychic. Not like them. She could deal with having handy hints from the universe uploaded into her brain from time to time, but she just wanted to be normal. It wasn’t until she was in Puente Antiguo, when the universe told her that there was someone in the middle of that freaky cyclone (if Jane hadn’t have grabbed the wheel she totally would have missed him), that she began to realise that normal was always going to be a distant dream for her.

And then the Destroyer landed. Darcy felt it before she saw it, knew it was coming before she heard the screams, and in the ensuing panic she somehow knew where people were hiding and got them out, herding them to safety. She pushed missing kids into their parents’ arms, and was able assure people that their friends and relatives had already made it out, even without really knowing who the hell they were talking about.

When the dust finally settled Darcy made a decision; she wasn’t going to ignore her abilities any more. But it wasn’t like she could flip a switch and suddenly become awesome at it, so she begrudgingly went to the only person she knew who could help. After convincing her mother that she wanted absolutely no part in some mother-daughter psychic team, no matter how lucrative the television deal, they spent a day talking about meditation, “opening one’s third eye,” and “listening to the universe.” It sounded hokey, and coming from her mother doubly so, but somewhere in her mother’s lectures Darcy could hear her Grandma Iris’s voice, the whisper of her tarot cards as one was pulled from the deck, and Darcy knew there were a few grains of truth in their somewhere.

After leaving her mother’s McMansion, drained yet inspired, Darcy drove two states over to retrieve her grandmother’s deck from its hiding spot and returned to Jane’s side. She meditated every morning and night, and spent as many weekends as she could sitting at a crappy fold out table at the local market giving tarot card readings. She listened to her dreams more, trusted her instincts without question, and did her best to open herself up to the universe. The rest would come, a familiar voice in her dreams assured her.

 

Jane wasn’t the most observant person. About the universe at large? Absolutely. But about her surroundings and the people close to her? Not really. Darcy had been gone a week, for reasons Jane was sure she knew but couldn’t recall, and it was a couple of days after she came back that Jane noticed a change in her intern. When she queried it Darcy had simply reminded her that she’d gone to see her mother.

“Oh,” the astrophysicist replied knowingly. Jane didn’t need more data to explain Darcy’s more pensive mood out, having already had the displeasure of seeing the woman’s television program. “Will you be okay?” she asked, like any good friend-slash-boss should.

“Yeah, boss lady. I’ll be fine,” Darcy assured her with a faraway smile.

One morning Darcy woke with a start, muttering in a small freaked out voice about aliens. Jane shook her head at her odd intern, dismissing the incident until she got an emergency consult request from the Skibotn Observatory in Tromsø. She went to rouse Darcy into action only to find her waiting outside Jane’s trailer, two suitcases at her feet and two heavy coats hanging over her arm.

“Ready to go?” Darcy asked dragging the suitcases to the van, ignoring her boss’s confused stares.

Again the unexplained phenomenon that was Darcy was forgotten in favour of the strange readings Tromsø had sent her. That too was forgotten when they landed because by then the Battle of New York was well underway.

“You knew,” Jane murmured, eyes fixed to the news footage as she watched Thor strike down aliens with his fabled hammer. Aliens who flew out of a portal in the sky. Dr Foster was desperate to study it, but Jane Foster was just scared for her friend and mentor, Eric, and the god she missed with all her heart.

“Yes,” came a quiet voice beside her. “Not the specifics. But I knew it was bad and we had to get the hell outta Dodge.” Darcy watched the screen guilty, blinking away a few tears for all the people she failed to warn.

“How?”

“Well… You know how my mom’s a psychic…”

“You’re mom’s a fraud, you’ve said so yourself.”

“She’s a vulture, sure, but she’s not a fake.”

“Psychics aren’t real, Darcy,” Jane snapped bitterly.

“Jane, sweetie,” Darcy replied with wry amusement. “You’re watching New York get attacked by aliens, whilst a god, a billionaire in rocket boots, a war hero from the forties, and your favourite biology professor on steroids try to stop them.”

Jane blinked once, turned to her intern and took in her “I promise you I’m not crazy” smile, turned back to the tv and blinked again.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah.”


	2. LOKI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy and Jane head to Avengers Tower after the Battle of New York. Jane is reunited with Thor and Darcy gives a reading to a very grumpy client.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. The response to the first chapter was overwhelming - I was completely blown away. THANK YOU. Here's the second installment, I hope it continues to entertain. xoxox

Once the chaos of New York had become a dull roar, Jane returned to her usual determined self, calling any and all numbers she could think of in the hopes of speaking with Thor. It took the two of them harassing S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Stark Tower switchboard for the better part of the night before a helpful British dude by the name of Jarvis put them in touch with Tony Stark himself. One short quinjet flight later and Jane was running into Thor’s waiting arms. And then she slapped him.

“Dude, you sent us to Norway?” Darcy scoffed, explaining her boss’s reaction as Jane had already moved on to giving the god her best heart eyes.

“It was Son of Coul’s idea. I only wanted to keep you safe,” Thor advised sheepishly before turning sombre. “He… he was felled in battle by my brother. He fought bravely trying to save me from Loki’s machinations. He will be greeted at the gates of Valhalla and heralded as a great hero,” Thor beamed, so terribly proud of his late shield brother.

Jane fussed over the god then and followed him down to one of the lab levels to help build some sort of containment-slash-teleportation device so Thor and the defeated Loki could return to Asgard. Darcy was forgotten about, but she didn’t hold too much of a grudge, considering the chaos just outside the window. She walked over to the wall of glass, one of a few that remained intact, shuffling her grandmother’s deck in her hands as had become a nervous habit.

 _Agent iPod Thief was dead?_ Darcy mused, watching the deck with a distant stare. _No, that’s not quite true._

Night fell and Jane hadn’t returned, and everyone was understandably too busy to worry about one unimportant intern. Alone in a strange place, with no one around to ask directions to the nearest bed, Darcy made do with what she had. She got comfortable on a couch she had claimed as her own, doing her best to tune out the sounds of sirens and emergency crews far below her, and eventually succumbed to the stress and jetlag of the last few days.

 

Darcy woke with a start, trying to hold onto the remnants of her dream. There was so much pain and fear, and there were monsters and aliens, blood and frost, all shown to her with thrum of the Tesseract in the background.

 _What the fuck is a Tesseract?_ Darcy wondered blearily reaching her glasses, her grandmother’s deck, and finally her phone. It was a little after four in the morning and the world outside was finally quiet, Darcy’s mind however was a hive of activity. She pocketed her phone and shuffled the deck of cards, finding some comfort in the repetitive motion. She let her mind go blank, let the pit of cold dread in her stomach unfurl, and… Darcy paused and glanced over at the strangely dark city, turning her head as though listening for something in a frequency no one else could hear. She jumped to her feet, cards clasped to her chest; the source of chaos that had infected her dreams was in the building.

_Loki._

Darcy stepped into the elevator and let the latent energies in the metal box wash over her, allowing it to tell her which button to press.

“I’m afraid you don’t have security clearance for that floor, Miss Lewis.”

“Uh, hello?” Darcy said curiously, looking around the empty elevator car for a security camera.

“Hello, Miss Lewis. My name is JARVIS. I am Mr Stark’s artificial intelligence system. I run the tower. And as I said, you do not have clearance for the containment level.”

Darcy stayed still for a moment before the right words came to her.

“Override code: India – Alpha – India – Mike.”

“Override accepted. Which is quite odd, as it one of Mr Stark’s archived personal override codes. May I enquire how you came to know about it, Miss Lewis?”

“No offence, but your boss is kind of arrogant,” Darcy replied casually. “He just used the phonetic alphabet to spell out “I am Iron Man.” He should probably change that. And set it up so it only works for his voice print and biometric signature. Or just delete it, since he doesn’t use it.”

“I will be sure to pass on your suggestion, Miss Lewis. The containment level, Miss Lewis,” the AI announced as the elevator doors opened onto an underground level. “Regardless of your use of the override code, I must impress upon you that you lack the clearance to visit the prisoner.”

“I’m not going to let him loose, JARVIS. I just want to talk to him.”

“I would advise against that, Miss Lewis.”

“Noted,” Darcy replied, ignoring the AI’s put-upon sigh as she followed Loki’s energy signature down a bleak hallway. She stood in front of a seriously heavy door with a simple keypad lock and stared at it for several minutes. She held her hand over it, trying to pull energy readings off the seldom used buttons and typing in a ten digit passcode. The door lifted up with a loud exhale of hydraulics and Darcy stepped inside, trying to quash the fear building in her chest as she stepped in front of the would-be king. He was seated on floor, leaning against the far wall, bruised and bloodied, looking every inch the defeated god.

“Hi,” she said weakly, berating herself for waving like an idiot.

“Who are you?” he asked slowly, his dark voice reverberating off the most-definitely-not-glass wall of his cell.

“I’m Darcy. I’m kind of a friend of Thor’s. I met him the first time he dropped out of the sky.”

The villain arched one eyebrow, his cold eyes judging and evaluating the strange mortal girl in week old sweater, jeans, and scuffed boots. Darcy averted her eyes and began shuffle the deck of cards in her hands absently.

“And you are here to… what exactly? Curse me? Kill me? Worship me?” he added with a tired smirk.

“Supervillains don’t get conjugal visits,” Darcy snapped with a roll of her eyes. “I’m here to help you.”

“Are you going to free me, little mortal?”

“No, I’m going to give you a reading. I think it will help you figure out where you’re supposed to go from here.”

Loki stared at her, then down at the cards in her hands, and snorted.

“And how are your simple Midgardian parlour tricks supposed to help me?” Loki sneered. “I’d rather you tried to kill me,” he added bitterly.

“Well, your negative energy is messing with my dreams, so I’m going to give you a reading, whether you like it or not. If anything it’ll give me a clear conscience and I’ll be able to get some sleep.”

Darcy ignored the petulant god and knelt down in front of his cell. She shuffled the cards a few more times before fanning them out in front of her. Usually when doing a reading she’d have the customer hold the cards and cut the deck so she could get their energy on them, but it wasn’t necessary in this case; dark and chaotic energy was rolling off Loki in waves. Darcy couldn’t ignore it if she tried.

She picked out the three cards that called to her, turning over the first.

“[The Tower Inverted](http://freudensteins-monster.tumblr.com/post/142333161851/pedeka-marveloki-journey-into-mystery-vol-1),” Darcy sighed, stroking the card’s simple design and feeling it sing to her. “The foundations of your life crumbled beneath your feet. So many lies told. You saw the truth in red eyes and blue skin but you could not accept it. You would not let the truth set you free, and so… you fell,” Darcy gasped, seeing Loki’s fall from the Bifrost in her mind’s eye, as though she was there.

“Am I supposed to be impressed? Thor never did learn to keep his mouth shut,” Loki grumbled.

“Thor didn’t tell me anything,” Darcy replied dismissively, turning her attention to the second card.  “The Seven of Swords,” Darcy winced, the singing becoming screaming as a cacophony of voices demanded her attention. “You will not escape this consequence free, Loki. You have betrayed Thanos, he will find you,” she muttered, unable to hear the god jumping to his feet over the noise in her head. “The Titan does not forgive, but your brother, your parents – they will. Hope is not lost, Loki. Be honest with yourself for once, be honest with those you care about. You are but a puppet. You may have cut the master’s strings, but he will make you pay. The Titan does not forgive…”

“What manner of magic is this,” Loki hissed, leaning down as close as he dared to Darcy’s swaying form. “If you are an agent of Thanos, why not just kill me? Why must you must you mock me with these theatrics?”

His ranting was cut off by Darcy’s hand slapping against the glass. In her palm, facing Loki, was a card that did not belong in her grandmother’s deck. The image upon it shifted and changed showing nothing but devastation across the Nine Realms, its title carved into it in ancient runes. Loki’s gaze moved from the card to the offending mortal, but by then her eyes were no longer her own.

“Ragnarok commeth, No One’s Son. And you its architect. You think you have no choice, that this is the only path of the Liesmith, of the son betrayed, but there are many paths, you have to but see them. But you will not,” Darcy laughed, the sound echoing in three distinct voices. “You will not see, you will not change. You think yourself trapped by the chains that bind you, but you could be free of this fate if you truly wanted. But the God of Lies will not be satisfied until his pride burns the world and all who have wronged him burn with it. You will laugh at the flames, even as they lick your own flesh,” Darcy cackled before slumping forward suddenly, groaning, her hand sliding down the not-glass with a stuttered squeak.

“What the hell was that?” Darcy muttered to herself, dropping the strange card, losing it amongst her scattered deck. A loud _thump_ drew her attention to the security door where Thor stood, his thunderous eyes trying to look past Darcy to the prisoner within. Behind him Darcy could just make out an annoyed Tony Stark punching in the passcode. Darcy lifted her heavy head and found Loki standing as far away from her as he could. What little colour he had in his cheeks had been replaced with a ghostly pallor.

“You should not be here, Lady Darcy,” Thor growled as he tried pick Darcy up off the floor, his eyes glued on his brother’s frozen form. Darcy tried to shrug his hand off her arm as she picked up her tarot cards, resisting his attempts to push her towards Tony Stark.

“Just give me a second,” she grumbled, straightening the cards in her hands, holding them close. As Tony tried to lead her away so Thor could have words with Loki a wave of insight hit Darcy, a last message from whatever forces had used her as a vessel. “Loki,” she cried, pulling away from grasping hands to tap on the not-glass. “It doesn’t have be like that, Loki. It’s not too late. Don’t help the monster!” she blurted as visions of possible futures whizzed through her brain. “Don’t help the monster,” she implored. “You can come back from anything… but not that. Please,” she begged before someone built a hell of a lot more solidly than Tony Stark picked her up and carried her back to the elevator. She was set down on her feet again only for her legs to give way. She was surprised to find herself held up by a strong pair of arms, the owner of which – _Captain America!_ a voice in the back of her mind squealed excitedly - practically dragged her out of the elevator and deposited in front of a very disappointed Jane.

“Darcy, what did you do?” she hissed, taking over unconscious!Darcy duty from the good captain.

“He was making my dreams cranky,” Darcy mumbled, hand to her throbbing head, as Jane shoved her inside an apartment that had apparently been assigned to them.

Whatever else Jane had to say on the matter was lost on Darcy, who fell asleep the moment she hit something soft. When she awoke it was to the concerned puppy dog eyes of the God of Thunder.

“Hey big guy. No yelling at me until I’ve had my coffee,” she begged groggily.

“I will not yell at you, Darcy. I apologise for doing so earlier, I was just worried for your safety. You should not have been allowed anywhere near Loki.”

“Yeah, JARVIS didn’t want me to go, but I figured out Tony’s super secret password so he didn’t really have a choice.”

“And how did you manage that?”

“Lucky guess,” Darcy shrugged, looking anywhere but Thor’s earnest face.

“Jane tells me that you have become a servant to the Norns,” he supplied with a raised eyebrow, daring her to keep trying to lie to him.

“The Norns gave me a headache,” Darcy grumbled, crinkling her nose.

“It’s is a heavy burden, little one,” Thor lamented, patting her cheek with a gentleness she wouldn’t have believe possible from such huge hands. “But I have faith that the Norns have chosen well. I have never before met a mortal who had the ability to unnerve my brother so.”

“Unnerve?” Darcy asked sceptically.

“What did you tell him, Darcy?”

“I may have inferred that he was an ass,” Darcy offered with a small smile.

“What did the Norns tell him?” Thor persisted. 

“I think that’s between the Norns and your brother, big guy,” Darcy apologised, patting Thor’s hand as he nodded. He looked at her strangely then, pursing his lips as a question brewed in his mind. “I’m not sure you really want to know,” Darcy reassured him, offering Thor a small smile. “Besides, you’re a warrior and a prince of Asgard. You control your own fate.”

“That I do,” Thor replied with a grin. “You are wise for one so young, Lady Darcy. I thank you for your council.”

“I’ll tell the Norns you said thanks,” Darcy smirked, falling back to sleep until she was brought back to the land of the living by the smell of coffee, but by then Thor and Loki had already beamed themselves back to Asgard.


	3. NATASHA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tell me about Loki, said the spider to the psychic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, guys. This chapter was never in my original plan but following the feedback on the last chapter I felt compelled to write the fallout from it. That being said, this fic was never meant to be a comprehensive re-imagining of the film events, but rather a series of vignettes that inserted psychic!Darcy into some of the movie events. Even with a rewrite and a few new chapters it's still essentially that. I hope you like it as it is and can forgive me for any plot points/characters I haven't addressed. Thank you for reading. xoxox

The next time Darcy woke up she was escorted, ever so politely, to a bland interrogation room somewhere in the bowels of Stark Tower. Or Avengers Tower, as the news had taken to calling it. Darcy was seated at a shiny metal table and then left alone to stew, sweat, or whatever it is they expected people to do in situations like this. Her hands itched for the tarot cards she had left stuffed under a couch cushion but she had to be grateful she hadn’t been handcuffed to the table like they did on TV. Unlike TV interrogation rooms there wasn’t a mirror on the white walls, which was a good thing in Darcy’s opinion because the little she could make out in the highly reflective tabletop was enough to make her cringe. Her hair was a complete bird’s nest and she was still wearing the same clothes she was wearing when they flew out of Norway, however many days ago that was now. The night before that was probably the last time she showered. And when exactly was the last time she brushed her teeth?

“Ugh,” Darcy muttered as she checked the state of her breath just as the door opened. The woman who walked in wasn’t much taller than Darcy. She looked a little banged up but had recently showered, her short red hair still damp and curling at the ends. She looked completely innocuous in jeans and a long sleeved dark grey sweater but Darcy had the good sense to be nervous in her presence.

“Miss Lewis, my name is Natasha Romanoff. I am an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and part of the Avengers Initiative. I’ve been tasked with asking you a few questions,” she said casually but there was steel in her voice. She seated herself across from Darcy, her pale blue eyes pinning her in place as her fingers tapped at the tablet in her hands. “Namely with how you managed to circumvent a security system designed by Tony Stark and gain access to Loki, the biggest threat to global security to have ever existed, when your technical expertise is limited creating fake ID’s and emailing your professors for extensions.” Darcy shifted awkwardly under the intensity of her stare, her eyes flicking to wall to her left as she crossed her arms defensively. “There’s also the matter of what happened after you got into his cell.” She turned the tablet around to show Darcy security footage from her boring break in, but from the moment she stepped in front of Loki the footage began to warp, static cutting in and out, before the screen went black. “What happened in those ten minutes, Miss Lewis? Thor and Dr Foster have vouched for you, but that means very little at the moment. Are you working for Loki? Did he turn you? We know he was using his sceptre to control people’s minds, but it’s quite possible that he has other ways of controlling people. Especially naïve girls,” she added pointedly. Darcy didn’t bite, instead she shrunk back and trying to appear submissive and apologetic. Agent Romanoff raised an eyebrow, not buying it for one minute.

“I’ll tell you everything. On one condition,” Darcy offered.

“Which is?”

“Can I get a Grande Caramel Cocoa Cluster Frappuccino and an Everything Bagel with cream cheese?” Darcy replied, dropping all pretense, her expression returning to its default ‘wry amusement’ setting.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not working for Loki, let’s just get that out of the way right now. And I’ll tell you whatever else you want to know. After I’ve got a caffeinated beverage in my hand. I don’t know about you, but today is definitely an ‘I need coffee to function’ kind of day. Also, I haven’t eaten anything substantial since, like, Tuesday afternoon? So… yeah,” she added lamely, watching the agent as closely as she was watching her. Darcy may have blinked first but Natasha still got up from the table and left the room, hopefully to go get Darcy her Starbucks order. 

The agent returned fifteen minute later with coffees and a brown paper bag which Darcy was delighted to find filled with bagels, a tub of cream cheese, and a plastic knife. Natasha handed Darcy her drink from the cardboard tray before removing her own, no-nonsense black if the smell was anything to go by, and retaking a seat opposite the starving intern.

“You said you’d talk once I gave you coffee,” she reminded Darcy, eying her disdainfully as Darcy lathered a bagel with cream cheese and promptly shoved it into her mouth. “But I suppose my questions can wait until you’ve stopped masticating your food.”

“’preciate it,” Darcy replied, alternating between mouthfuls of food and drink until she had finished her first bagel. “Okay, I’m good now. What do you want to know?”

“How about a few true or false questions to start us off? You work as Dr Foster’s assistant?”

“True.”

“But you’re a political science major, not an astrophysicist?”

“True. And don’t give me shit for not having a degree in ‘hard sciences.’ I get enough of that from my parents. And my friends. And Jane. And Eric.”

“You made first contact with Thor when first landed in New Mexico?”

“Technically Jane’s van made first contact, and my taser made second contact, but sure – true - I was there when the big guy crash landed.”

“You were in Puente Antiguo when Loki sent the Destroyer?”

“True.”

“You had contact with Loki when he was in Puente Antiguo?” Natasha asked, her eyes pouring over every micro expression from the woman opposite her.

“Nooo… false…” Darcy replied, her brow crinkling in confusion. “Are you telling me he was _there_ there, not just, like, controlling his toy deathbot with an Xbox controller from Asgard?”

“You had contact with Loki prior to the Battle of New York?” Natasha asked, ignoring Darcy’s question.

“False. Before yesterday I had only ever seen him on the news.”

“You believe you’re psychic?”

“I don’t believe – I am. Kind of. Still getting the hang of it. But fine, true,” Darcy grumbled after receiving a pointed stare from Natasha.

“Okay, let’s move past true/false questions,” Natasha announced, sipping on her coffee. “I want your statement on the record. Everything that happened from before you decided to visit Loki to the moment you were dragged away.”

Darcy sighed loudly, took a long drag from her straw, before doing as she was asked.

“Jane and I arrived at the tower. Thor and Jane went off to science together, or something. I don’t think it was a euphemism, but you never know. Um, I was left to my own devices so I just kind of took up residence on a couch and just kinda crashed once it got dark. And then I had this dream,” Darcy offered nervously. Her grandmother had been taken advantage of, her mother took advantage of others… Darcy had to wonder if her contribution to the family legacy would to simply be taken away to a nice padded cell. “I can’t really remember the details. It was more feelings, really. Pain and anger and fear. And there was screaming, so loud it woke me up. I tried to think about what it meant, what it was trying to tell me. I focused on the feelings from my dream and realised that they were coming from someone inside the tower. And I knew it was Loki. I took the elevator down to the containment level-”

“And how did you gain access to the containment level? How did you even know about it?” Darcy shifted in her seat, her eyes fixed on her coffee cup. “Miss Lewis?”

“I can sort of read energy signatures,” she quietly admitted. “It’s something like psychometry, like that carnival trick where the guy can touch your watch and know exactly where you got it, who gave it to you…”

“Energy signatures?” Natasha probed, her expression neutral though her inflection made Darcy think the agent was leaning towards ‘sceptical.’

“Every living thing has an energy signature. It’s unique as a fingerprint. And I’m sensitive to them. Not usually this much, though,” she confessed.

“So you got in the elevator. And then what?”

“I followed Loki’s energy signature. It was really strong. When I focused my attention on the floor buttons I knew exactly which button was pressed when Loki was in the elevator. So I pressed it and then, um, Jarvis? He said I didn’t have clearance, but I focused again, picking up on the energies of everyone who had been in that elevator, and I was able to single out Tony Stark, and I could see in my head, clear as day, him giving Jarvis an override code. So I repeated it and Jarvis let me down there, reluctantly, I should add. I’d hate to think that he got in trouble because of me.”

“JARVIS is a computer system, Miss Lewis,” Natasha replied pointedly.

“I think he has feelings. Don’t you, Jarvis?” Darcy asked the ceiling.

“As Agent Romanoff stated, Miss Lewis, I am but a computer program, albeit a highly advanced one, and as such I am not in possession of a human emotional range. Though I must convey gratitude over your concern for my wellbeing, so that would indicate that the answer is not easily discernible.”

Darcy offered Natasha a ‘what did I tell you’ smile, gesturing at the source of JARVIS’ voice.

“And then what happened,” Natasha demanded, resisting the urge to sigh with frustration.

“I found the cell and punched in the passcode.”

“Which you figured out via psychometry?”

“Mhmm, and then I went inside and saw Loki for the first time.”

“And what did he say to you?”

“He wanted to know why I was there. Whether I was there to kill him or let him out. I told him I wanted to do a reading. A tarot card reading. My grandmother’s tarot card set always helps me feel centred, and I thought if I could give him a reading I could sort through all his negative energy and get it out of my head.”

“And how did he react to that?”

“He went all ‘lowly mortal’ on me. I ignored him. It wasn’t like he could do anything to stop me. And then I gave him a reading; past, present, future. And I just told him what I saw,” Darcy said, which was basically true.

“And how did you interrupt the video and audio feeds? How did you keep JARVIS out?”

“I didn’t do that. Like you said, fake ID’s are the extent of my computing wizardry.”

“But you have an idea of what happened.”

Darcy grimaced. She hadn’t wanted to elaborate, but Agent Romanoff saw so much she might as well have been psychic. “I have a theory,” she said tentatively. “Did Thor tell you anything about what happened?”

“He said that you had become a servant of the Norns. We assumed it was the Asgardian version of a psychic.”

“No,” Darcy sighed with a small shake of her head. “The Norns… The Norns are the Norse equivalent of the Greek Fates. They control the destinies of men. They’re all seeing, all powerful, and usually they’re just happy to observe. But for whatever reason they felt that Loki needed a nudge. I think… I think they spoke to him through me. And I have to assume that their presence messed with the security feed. I’m sorry,” Darcy winced. “That’s all I’ve got.”

“You think the Norns spoke to Loki through you?” Natasha asked incredulously.

“Yes,” Darcy replied adamantly. “Listen, I’m not that good of a psychic. I only started honing my abilities after New Mexico. On my best day it would take like a whole day’s worth of meditation and smoking a few joints before I was ‘one with the universe’ enough to pull override codes out of thin air. This was not me, not by myself. It’s like they amplified my abilities to the point where I’d be able to serve their purpose.”

“Why did they want to speak to Loki about? What did you – they – tell him?”

“Honestly, I’ve already forgotten most of it. It was like uploading a program into my head Matrix-style, but then my stupid mortal brain can’t hold on to it all.”

“What did you tell him, Darcy?” Natasha repeated.

“I think… I think I just warned him off the path he was on,” Darcy admitted as confidently as she could. “Told him that there wasn’t just ruination in his future. But that’s true of anyone, I suppose. The future’s always in flux.”

“Anything else?” Natasha prodded.

“Nothing specific. I think it was just more of the same.”

Natasha studied Darcy intently, making mental notes, weighing up options, before coming to a decision.

“I think it would be best if we took kept you under observation while we run some tests. I’ll need to go over your statement with my superiors and-”

“No, I don’t think so,” Darcy said, cutting off a very unimpressed Avenger.

“Excuse me?”

“I will not be put under observation. I will not be poked and prodded and experimented on,” Darcy said with more confidence than she felt. “Loki’s gone, the Norns have gone – I’m fine. I’m not your responsibility, and no one here besides Janie actually gives a shit about me, so any claims that you’re only looking out for me or have my best interests at heart will be met with a derisive snort. But you know who else gives a shit about me? And who knows more about the Norns that you do? And who showed zero concern for my health after I had been possessed by those chatty bitches? And who would be really pissed off if he found out that his new friends were keeping his girlfriend’s bestie against her will? Hmm?”

Darcy really wanted Natasha to at least look abashed at her tirade but all she got was a perfectly arched eyebrow in response.

“And you don’t need to keep me here until you’ve shown my statement to your superiors, because they’ve been watching the whole time,” she said, turning to glare at the not-wall on her left. There were only two people there now. Tony Stark had left soon after she started talking about her abilities, so that left Captain America and another energy signature that Darcy was unfamiliar with. “Hey Captain, your fly’s down!” she called, her eyes glancing at a point of the wall where she could sense his energy coming from. “Made him look,” Darcy smirked, turning her attention back to her interrogator. The corner of Natasha’s mouth twitched into an almost smile.

“How did you know they were there? Did you read my mind?”

“No, I don’t do that. Not really. Usually I just get vibes off people, and if they’re really emotional it’s easy to get read on them. They might as well be screaming at me. But you,” she said, eyeing Natasha up and down warily. “You are a closed book, in a locked box, at the bottom of the ocean. It’s impressive. And really scary.”

“That’s most people’s first impression of me,” Natasha smirked.

“I’ll bet. So, can I go?” she asked after a beat. “Because I’m sure that with Thor gone and me in here, Jane’s burying herself in work. I’d really like to go keep an eye on her.”

Natasha glanced at a point on the wall then down at her tablet as a message popped up.

“You can go now, Miss Lewis. But we’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

“Joy,” Darcy muttered sarcastically as she pushed her chair back with a sharp metallic screech. She picked up the bag of bagels, leaving her now tepid drink, and made to leave, turning back to Natasha as she reached the door. “Hey, when you see Son of Coul can you tell him I want my iPod back?”

Natasha’s expression hardened.

“Agent Coulson was killed by Loki three days ago.”

Darcy’s brow creased as she tried to make sense of what she was feeling. Natasha thought was she was saying was true, but someone else knew that it wasn’t. Darcy turned her attention to the other person behind the wall.

“When you see Agent Coulson can you tell him I want my iPod back, with interest, payable in iTunes gift cards?”

There was a sudden spike of anger and confusion from the interrogation room and its surroundings, and as thanks for their hospitality, Darcy left them sort it out themselves.

 

Two months later, as Darcy and Jane were packing up their New Mexico operation before heading off to London, a parcel arrived with Darcy’s name written on it in neat handwriting. Inside was her beloved iPod and $200 worth of iTunes giftcards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pay no attention to the man with the eye patch behind the curtain!


	4. JANE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short little chapter for bosslady.

“No, Jane.”

“What?” Jane asked, feigning innocence as she turned back to her work.

“I can feel your eyes burning holes in the back of my head. I know what you want to ask me, and the answer’s no. I will not become your guinea pig,” Darcy replied without turning around. “Besides, you’re an astrophysicist. Why would I trust you to poke around my brain?” Darcy asked in bored tones as she continued entering data into one of Jane’s spreadsheets.

“But science-”

“But science no, Jane.”

Jane sighed irritably and picked up a pencil to heft at the back of her intern’s head.

“Pencil,” Darcy said out of nowhere, her back still to Jane. Jane stared from the pencil in her hand to Darcy and back again. She put it down and picked up another object. “Screwdriver. Duct tape. Whiteboard marker. The rough draft of your paper that I’ve edited and asked to you read over two days ago.”

Jane dropped the stack of paper on her desk in a huff. “Psychic…” she muttered, shaking her head in disbelief with a side of annoyance.

“Yeah, that or I can see your reflection in the glass,” Darcy offered helpfully, pointing to the shiny lab wall in front of her.

“Oh, you little…”

Darcy fled the lab under a hail of balled up paper, laughing all the way to the cafeteria where she picked up two coffees and a couple of pastries, knowing, even before Jane did, that her boss was craving bear claws.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm afraid I don't write Jane very well, or feel inspired to do so :/ I'm sure Jane is super curious about Darcy's abilities, but ultimately it's a little outside her wheelhouse. She'll have to stick to Einstein-Rosen Bridges.


	5. THE CONVERGENCE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snippets of Thor: The Dark World feat. psychic!Darcy.

Opening yourself up to the universe was all well and good until some mystical convergence loomed and you were suddenly opening yourself up to a dozen universes at once. Darcy felt dizzy, and completely useless. She had lost her scientist. Twice. Though the second time was totally not her fault – Jane had been abducted by aliens, Darcy would have joked to herself, if she wasn’t so preoccupied with freaking out. She couldn’t even find Erik. Ian the Intern had found him. On the fucking news. At Stonehenge. One of the most psychically charged places on the planet, and Darcy couldn’t figure that out. She was just about ready to hang up her tarot cards when Jane returned, wearing fancy new duds, with Thor in tow. Just one look at the Asgardian made Darcy’s stomach drop.

“What happened?” Darcy demanded.

“Loki is dead,” Thor advised solemnly. He told her the terrifying tale of how Jane had been infected by the Aether, and the ancient evil race of elves that wanted to take it from her. Asgard had been invaded and whilst Thor had gone to quell the prison break – only a diversion – his mother had protected Jane.

“Is she…”

“Her injuries were minor. She held off Malekith until I returned to her side, whereupon I sent him and his Kursed monster back to their ship.”

A strange fear Darcy had been holding onto for the past two years suddenly dissipated and she almost laughed with relief. She choked it down, offering Thor her sympathies before turning to check on Jane, but the astrophysicist appeared rather nonplussed about the whole ordeal and was already focused on figuring out how to stop the latest alien threat. 

When the battle was won, and the Convergence over, Darcy began to feel like her old self again. Thor returned from Asgard and gave them the good – depending on your personal opinion – news; Loki wasn’t dead. He had been mostly dead when Thor abandoned him (Thor’s words, because Jane and even Loki hadn’t been able to stop him beating himself up about it) and had recovered enough to signal one of Odin’s guards as they passed over the field of battle. He was returned to Asgard, had his wounds treated, and was once again locked in his cell. Thor had been to see him before seeking out his father to announce his return to Midgard, but he when he reached the throne room he was told his father had once again fallen into the Odinsleep. Queen Frigga now ruled as regent in his stead and would no doubt release Loki from his confines to act as an advisor before the Midgardian year was up. Darcy couldn’t stop smiling.

A few days after Thor’s return it occurred to Darcy that Ian the Intern was a deceitful shit and should be ditched before he could cause problems. One good threat of death by magical hammer had the sleeper agent running for the hills.

“We should probably tell someone about that,” Darcy mused as she shuffled her tarot cards at the breakfast table, wondering with foolish optimism what the future held.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some people write Ian the Intern as the adorkable scientist he appears to be, others write him as an two-faced liar who lies. I made my choice.


	6. FRIGGA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy meets the Queen of Asgard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some AoU references/divergence.

Okay, so the future held Hydra double agents and the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Oh, and Tony Stark created a murder bot. Thankfully they had been safe in Thor’s company when the first shitstorm happened, and off the grid for the second. Darcy had managed to convince Jane to travel up to Tromsø again after picking up her Nobel Peace Prize, and though Jane was suspicious as hell to begin with she played her usual game of “I really don’t want to know what Darcy knows,” but who was she kidding? It was a giant telescope under the Northern Lights and Jane wasn’t going to miss another chance to use it just because the world might be ending. Again.

Thor had come to see Darcy in the midst of the chaos, wanting to ask the Norns questions. After a long chat, and a few draughts of Asgardian super ale, Darcy had a head spin worthy of Linda Blair. The Norns had spoken to Thor through Darcy, and whatever they had said Darcy wasn’t able to hold onto it after suffering through an Asgardian sized hangover. Thor gave her a quick summary when he had them flown back to the new Avengers facility after the Ultron situation had been sorted out, and invited her and Jane back to Asgard with him as he had much to do there and didn’t want to leave them behind. Jane jumped at the offer whilst Darcy remained hesitant.

“I don’t know, big guy,” she cringed. “I don’t want to third wheel it up there. It’d be too weird.”

“My mother would love to meet you, Darcy, and perhaps she could teach you a thing or two about foresight.”

Darcy um’d and ah’d internally, chewing on a fingernail as she deliberated. “Okay, sure,” she nodded, sounding anything but. “I just need to get… changed,” she grimaced as the blinding light of the Bifrost faded to reveal the golden walls of the observatory. “Seriously, Thor? You couldn’t wait five minutes? I can’t meet the Queen of Asgard in my Avenger Kittens t-shirt and a coat I’ve used as a blanket more times than I care to mention.”

“Fear not, Lady Darcy of Midgard,” came a deliciously golden voice which belonged to the equally golden gatekeeper. “Proper court attire has been set out for you in your rooms. You may take time to rest and change before meeting the Queen Regent.”

“Thanks… Heimdall, right? It’s awesome to meet you.”

“It is… awesome to meet you as well, Lady Darcy.”

“Did you hear that?” Darcy whisper-shouted, looping her arm in Jane’s as Thor led them towards the palace. “He called me ‘Lady Darcy’!”

“Thor calls you ‘Lady Darcy’ all the time,” Jane replied, wanting to sound irritated but unable to do so when she was distracted by her Asgardian science boner.

“Yeah, but he’s like a brother. That doesn’t count.”

She could swear she heard the gatekeeper chuckling behind them.

 

The realm was amazing, the palace was mind-blowing, and her suite ( _her own personal frigging suite!_ ) was bigger than her childhood home. Asgard was officially awesome and was sure to become Darcy’s favourite holiday destination. She got cleaned up in the massive bathroom ( _Gold plumbing? Really?)_ and was helped into a [dress](http://www.mtv.com/content/style/photos/flipbooks/oscars-2012/jessica-chastain-140006304.jpg) by two quiet maids. Apparently no Asgardian outfit was complete without armour, Darcy mused as she took in her reflection, fidgeting with the [gold shoulder piece](http://pinkabsinthe.deviantart.com/art/Blue-metallic-corsage-and-dark-silver-armor-394435185).

“Please tell me that’s not real gold,” Darcy muttered to herself as she fingers traced over the detailing of her dress.

Darcy turned her head towards the door before she heard the knock, but whatever her abilities, Darcy was still surprised to see Loki on the other side of the door.

“Miss Lewis,” he greeted, a small smile playing on his lips.

“Hi,” she replied nervously, her eyes flitting over his lithe form to the guards that flanked him.

“Ah, yes,” he sighed, acknowledging the men behind him. “I am under what you might call ‘house arrest.’ I can go nowhere without an armed escort, my powers are restricted, and I am confined to the palace proper for the foreseeable future,” he listed off wearily.

“Better than the alternative,” Darcy replied before she could stop herself.

Loki regarded her curiously before muttering a tense, “If you say so.” He shifted uncomfortably, obviously tired of having his every movement watched and catalogued. “Thor is busy _entertaining_ Dr Foster, so my mother has requested for an audience with you whilst you both have time to spare. I am to escort you to her chambers.”

“Oh, okay,” Darcy replied, repressing the urge to shrink back as she exited her suite and stood beside the disgraced prince.

“This way,” Loki said, stalking off down the hallway. Darcy struggled to keep up and eventually Loki took pity on her and altered his pace to a languid stroll, for which Darcy’s much shorter legs were grateful.

“You look well,” Darcy blurted when the silence grew too heavy for her. “A lot better than the last time I saw you.”

“As do you,” Loki replied, stifling a laugh when she narrowed her eyes at him. “Asgardian garb suits you.”

“Um, thanks. It’s beautiful, but I’m having a hard time not thinking about how much something like this would cost back on Earth,” she replied, her hands moving over the please-don’t-be-real-gold brocading.

“I’m sure mother will let you keep it, if you like.”

“Don’t even kid about that,” Darcy warned with a stressed laugh as they came to a stop outside two giant golden doors.

Loki knocked twice and hearing a response from within pushed the doors open. The room appeared empty at first glance but as Darcy stepped inside she saw Queen Frigga of Asgard seated at a loom, humming softly to herself. Darcy paused when she realised that Loki wasn’t following her in. She turned to find him closing the doors, offering Darcy a small nod of encouragement before leaving her alone with the Allmother.

“Darcy Lewis, it is a pleasure to meet you,” she greeted warmly, stepping away from the apparatus that appeared to Darcy to be at ancient and futuristic all at once.

“Hi… your majesty,” Darcy replied, stumbling over the words as her legs argued over whether she should be curtsying or not. The queen’s eyes sparkled with amusement as she reached out to give Darcy’s hands a reassuring squeeze.

“You need not be nervous, my dear. I mean you no harm,” Frigga teased.

“I know,” Darcy replied with a nervous giggle. “But it’s not every day you get beamed up to Asgard and meet the Queen. I’m just…”

“Overwhelmed,” Frigga nodded in understanding. “I would ask you to sit,” she added, gesturing at the sofas behind her whilst giving Darcy a look that she could only describe as ‘knowing.’ “But perhaps you would like to take a walk in the gardens with me instead?”

“That sounds wonderful, your majesty.”

“Excellent,” the queen beamed, taking Darcy’s arm in hers as she escorted her out into her private gardens. They walked through the beautiful and alien collection for several minutes in comfortable silence before the queen spoke again. “I wanted to thank you, Darcy. You saved one of my son’s from a darker path, and assisted the other in a time of great need, and for that I will be eternally grateful.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Darcy said, ducking her head and pushing some wayward strands of hair behind her ear. “The Norns did all the heavy lifting.”

“Ah, yes, and it is of them and their interest in you of which I wish to speak,” Frigga said, pausing under a blossoming fruit tree. “You have a gift, Darcy. A gift which you have done well to cultivate on your own, but as you can already attest, your ability is so much stronger when in direct contact with the Norns. There is a temple, hidden in the mountains of Vanaheim, in which there is a sisterhood devoted to serving the Norns. I spent my girlhood there, developing my own skills, learning the ways of the priestesses, until it was time for me to marry. The High Priestess of the temple is aware of you, naturally, and she wishes to extend an invitation for you to join them so that you can better understand your gifts and one day join the sisterhood, a true servant of the Norns.”

“Oh, wow… I… Holy cow,” Darcy stammered, trying to reign in her freak out before she brought up the poptarts she’d had for breakfast. “I mean, that’s… I’m honoured, really, but, um…”

“Yes?” the eternally patient queen asked.

“Can I just ask first off – how long does training take? I don’t have to stay there forever, right? I mean, you left and rejoined the real world.”

“Of course, Darcy. You would not be a prisoner there. The standard training period is fifty years.”

“Fifty years?!”

“Depending on the devotion of the disciple, and the amount of interest the Norns take in them,” Frigga added helpfully.

“I can’t go live in the mountains for fifty years,” Darcy screeched, officially freaking out. “Did you forget that we mere mortals don’t live that long? Fifty years is most of my life! I’d be an old woman before I got to go home again. I would have missed everything! And don’t get me wrong, your majesty, it’s super cool to be the Norns’ favourite vessel, but that’s no way to live. I’ve heard stories about your gifts. You took a vow never to speak of your visions – what’s the fucking point of that? It would kill me to know all the bad things that were coming and not be able to warn anyone. I like being able to help, even if it’s only in little ways, even if it seems pathetic in the eyes of the great and powerful Norns, and I…”

Darcy paused her ramblings long enough to see Frigga smiling softly at her with that knowing look again. Darcy groaned, embarrassed, and let out a huff of laughter.

“Why did you invite me here if you knew I’d say no?”

“Oh, my darling girl,” Frigga smiled warmly, taking Darcy’s hands in hers, leaning forward to press a kiss upon her forehead. “Because then I wouldn’t have gotten to meet you.”

Darcy smiled brightly and, completely ignoring protocol, hugged the monarch tightly.

“You really are a goddess, you know that?” Darcy gushed as Frigga hugged her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may be expecting/hoping for a bit more (Loki), but this is pretty much it. So many more things and people for Darcy to interact with *clicks fingers* Gotta keep moving.
> 
> Okay, fine. So there was probably a feast. Frigga was regal and amazing. Thor and Jane made heart eyes at each other all night. Loki was tolerable. Darcy may have been drunk. She went home the next day, or perhaps the day after that, and most likely pinched Heimdall's butt on her way out.


	7. TONY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist meet assistant, poli sci major, scientist wrangler, psychic.

“Hey, Tony… whatcha doing?” Darcy asked innocently, hovering in the doorway of his workshop.

“No. Go away, Lewis,” he shouted back without turning away from his current project.

“Why? What did I do?”

“You’re loitering. You know I hate loitering.”

“At least I’m not trying to hand you something,” she snarked, earning a small smirk from the genius, billionaire, etc, etc.

“What do you want, Lewis?”

“Just came to chat,” she offered, taking a few more steps into his workshop.

“I don’t chat. And if I did, it wouldn’t be with you,” he said with no real malice in his voice. “Now shoo,” he added, waving her towards to the exit.

“Why not me?” she asked earnestly, leaning on his workbench so he had to at least look at her.

“You know why,” he said pointedly. “Now stop staring into my soul like that, you’re creeping me out.”

“You need to talk to someone,” she pleaded.

“I talked to Bruce.”

“He falls asleep. And he’s, you know, not around right now. I am.”

“I appreciate the offer, kiddo, but you are not qualified to go messing around up here,” he said, tapping the side of his head with a screwdriver.

“Soon I will be. I’m totally taking online courses in psychiatry.”

Tony gave her a look.

“Okay, fine, I started reading an online textbook.”

And another look.

“Wikipedia articles,” she confessed with a heavy sigh, earning a snort of laughter from her most difficult charge.

In truth she was actually looking into an Intro to Psychology course online, a fact FRIDAY would inform her creator of at some point, but for now Darcy was happy with any conversation she could wheedle out of Tony. He was swirling vortex of pain after, well, _everything_ , and Darcy couldn’t handle staying at the tower with him when he was just straight out ignoring his issues.

“Okay, so now that we’ve established that you are in no way qualified to have me on your couch, you should leave. This is a workshop,” he said, waving to the space as he wandered around it, trying to put some distance between them. “Where I build things. So unless you’re building something, you need to leave.”

“Can I build something?” she asked, perking up.

“You wanna build something?” he muttered, running a hand over his face. “Do you even know the right end of a screwdriver?”

“Actually, yes, Iron Ass. I know the right end of a screwdriver, and a wrench, and a soldering iron. I work on all of Jane’s equipment.”

“Jane’s equipment?” Tony sneered. “Those things belong in a junkyard, they’re always on the verge of exploding.”

“But they don’t. Because of me,” Darcy replied smugly. “Me and the glories of duct tape.”

“What would you even make?” Tony asked, staring at the heavens, or more likely FRIDAY, wondering what he did to deserve so much grief from such a short woman.

“I dunno,” Darcy mused, her eyes wandering around his workspace until she got an idea. “As cool as it would be to have my own Iron Maiden suit,” she said, not missing the pained wince from Tony at the thought. “I think I’d like to make my own car.”

“You wanna make a car?”

“Jesus, Tony. Yes, a car. Did you become a parrot in the last ten minutes? Stop repeating everything I say.”

“Fine, whatever, you can make a car.”

“Cool. Where do you store wheels?”

“Wheels? You don’t… Lewis,” he ground out. “You don’t start with wheels, you start with a design, or at least some clue as to what you’re doing. FRIDAY, open a new file under ‘Short and Stacked,’ would you?”

“Of course, boss.”

“Here,” he said, shoving her towards a seat in front of a holo screen. “Sit, figure out your design, and for the love of all that is holy – Be. Quiet.”

Darcy mimed zipping her mouth shut and turned her attention to the screen as instructed, leaving Tony in blissful silence for almost an hour before he saw her hand shoot up.

“Yes, Lewis?” he sighed.

“I require your professional input.”

“Shoot,” he said, not looking up from his own work.

“Well, I’ve narrowed it down to two cars. Dodge Charger, Bo and Derek style – minus the confederate flag, obviously.” Tony smirked at that. “Or a ’57 Bel Air 4-door hardtop.” Tony blinked.

“’Dukes of Hazzard’ I can understand – I mean, who doesn’t love a beautiful woman in daisy dukes? – but how do you know a ‘57 Bel Air from a Tonka truck?”

“My grandmother had one,” Darcy shared. “In Canyon Coral. It was beautiful.”

“Alright then, I’m not sentimental, but you seem the type, so let’s go with the Bel Air,” he said, flicking her screen over to his side of the room, pulling the image apart to stare at the bare bones of it. Darcy walked over to watch him tinker with it, smiling softly to herself. “You’ll have to reinforce the framework, use stronger, lighter materials. And don’t get me started on that engine. 150hp? It’s embarrassing.”

“Do you think it could be powered by an arc reactor? Or maybe even fly? I mean, Phil has a flying Corvette,” Darcy said conversationally.

“Well, if _Phil_ has one…” he muttered, but Darcy didn’t miss the gleam in his eye. She had him, and before the month was out she had was getting a second pay check made out to Darcy Lewis, apprentice mechanic.

** *** **

Darcy worked on her car whenever she and Tony were in the same building, science benders with Jane and Avenging notwithstanding, and did her best not to push her mental health agenda with him. He tolerated her presence, knowing full well she was working on the car first and foremost as an excuse to check up on him, but Darcy took what she could get. It took a few months before Tony opened up to her about more than just which of his robots was annoying him that day, and when the time came he’d been the one trying to comfort her.

** *** **

It was the anniversary of the London attacks and Darcy couldn’t close her eyes without seeing Dark Elves surrounding her. She gave up on sleep and wandered down to Tony’s workshop in her pj’s, hoping to work on her ‘baby’ for a few hours in peace. Unfortunately Tony was already there looking like he hadn’t slept, or more annoyingly, that he didn’t need to. Thankfully though he was 'in the zone' so Darcy didn’t bother him, just took up her usual seat and opened up her last save file. She was working on the engine. At least that was the idea. Tony had given her a crash course in electric engines and arc reactor technology, and then left her to flounder in a sea of information. She was trying to read up on lithium-ion batteries but her eyes kept skimming over the words, so she gave up constructive work for playing around with the paint job. It was then, as a rainbow of colours flickered across her screen, that Tony finally noticed her.

“Lewis? What are you doing up?” he asked after quick glance at his watch.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Bad dreams?”

“Yeah.”

“About?”

“London.”

FRIDAY, ever helpful, pulled up a few relevant articles so Tony knew exactly what she was talking about.

“You and Foster were there at Ground Zero, huh?”

“Yep.”

“You get out okay?”

“Yeah, barely a scratch, it’s just… I keep dreaming about Dark Elves attacking me. In London, there was a moment when I thought I was a goner but Ian saved me. I kissed him for saving me.”

“Ian-the-Hydra-plant Ian?”

“Yep,” Darcy replied, popping to the word like bubblegum.

“That’s rough, kiddo. But don’t feel bad about not figuring Ian out. Obie spent 40 odd years pretending to my friend before he tried to kill me, and I never saw it coming. But wait, aren’t you supposed to be psychic? Maybe you should have seen it coming,” he teased.

“The Convergence messed with my reception,” she replied, sticking her tongue out at him.

“Sorry I wasn’t there to help, by the way. With the Convergence, the aliens, and what have you,” he rambled. “Took a while for word to get to me that something was up and by the time I was in the air Point Break had already stopped it.”

“Tony Stark, renowned genius, didn’t realise the universe was tearing itself a new one?” Darcy asked sceptically.

“You’ll have to forgive me, but I was doing my best to stay away from scary space portals after the whole… New York thing.”

“Understandable,” Darcy nodded. “There’s a lot of scary shit out there, huh?” she mused quietly, picked absently at her pyjama pants.

“And we don’t know the half of it,” he muttered to himself.

“But we’re lucky, I guess,” Darcy remarked, earning a quizzical glance from the inventor.

“How so?”

“We might have higher than the average weird and evil shit in our lives, but we’ve got twice as many good guys too.” Darcy gave him a bright smile that made him happy for exactly 0.25 of a second before it made him uncomfortable.

“Alright, enough with the touchy feely crap,” he announced loudly, clapping his hands together. “Go grab us some coffee and then you can help me work on my repulsors.”

“Really?” Darcy asked excitedly.

“Unless you want to go back to your room and contemplate the meaningless of existence?”

“No, thanks,” Darcy chirped brightly, pushing herself off her stool and heading for the coffee machine, missing the smile Tony sent her way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark has more issues than Playboy. Everyone with eyes should be able to see that but his issues are ignored, pushed aside as inconvenient to others, or written off as part of his abrasive personality. Tony Stark needs help. Professional help. But let's start him out with a friend. Someone who can understand what he's feeling without him having to *shudder* talk about it.


	8. WANDA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy consoles her sister-in-psychic-powers.

Getting a good night’s sleep was always a bit of a coin toss for Darcy. Mostly her sleep patterns were disrupted due to Jane’s science binges, but sometimes other peoples’ nightmares invaded her dreams. As the Avengers were all pretty much poster children for PTSD, Darcy did what she could to protect herself from having other minds bleed into her own while she slept, but sometimes it was just no use.

Darcy sighed and rolled over to check the time, the neon green numbers mocking her. She tried to focus and block out the noise but it didn’t work, most likely because Darcy would have felt cruel and callous for ignoring it. She sighed again and threw off her blankets, pulling on a pair of well-worn cupcake print pyjama bottoms, which clashed wonderfully with her Captain America t-shirt, before exiting her room and trudging to the other side of the building.

Darcy hadn’t spent much time in Wanda Maximoff’s presence since she and Jane first moved into the upstate facility. Despite being about the same age and both having ‘mind powers,’ Darcy was still exclusively ‘Team Science,’ whilst Wanda was ‘Team I-Can-Kill-You-With-My-Brain,’ so their paths rarely crossed. Wanda’s usual confidante, Vision, was off world researching the Infinity Stones with the assistance of Loki (under the watchful eye of Thor), so Darcy felt the need to step up to fill the void the synthezoid left.

She found Wanda’s room with ease and rapped her knuckles on the door before letting herself in. Wanda was sitting up in bed, a burgundy t-shirt dress pulled over her knees and one of Pietro’s jackets clutched to her chest as she cried. Darcy approached her carefully, waiting to see if Wanda’s trademark red glow, currently forming a protective bubble around the young Avenger, would let her in.

Wanda looked up and watched warily as Darcy eased herself onto bed next to her, shuffling closer until she could wrap an arm around the other woman. Wanda stiffened at her touch before snapping like a rubber band and latching onto Darcy, clutching at Darcy’s sleeves as she sobbed. Darcy held Wanda tightly and stroking her cheek as she pressed a kiss into her hair. Darcy let her mind wander and, despite their vastly different backgrounds, found a common thread between them. She started humming a song from her childhood, the words long since lost to her, and by the time the song ended and Darcy’s voice faded away Wanda had settled down, her pain easing and replaced with exhaustion.

“Who taught you that song?” Wanda all but whispered.

“I think my father sang it to me when I was a kid,” Darcy replied, searching her memories for proof.

“Where is he now?”

“My mom scared him off,” Darcy huffed. “I was told he died when I was about five. Car accident. Who used to sing it to you?”

“My mother,” Wanda sighed sadly.

“What was she like?” 

“She… she was beautiful,” Wanda cried.

“I don’t doubt that,” Darcy smiled, placing another kiss on Wanda’s temple. “How about you try and get some sleep, huh?

Darcy encouraged Wanda to lie down but she was reluctant to relinquish her hold on the other woman.

“I don’t want to be alone,” Wanda whispered. “I miss them so much.”

“I know,” Darcy replied soothingly, settling in for the night as best she could beside her sister-in-psychic-powers.

 

Darcy and Wanda woke up still wrapped in each other’s arms. In the grey morning light it could have been the most awkward non-sexual morning after ever, but Darcy didn’t give Wanda a moment to feel embarrassed. Instead Darcy dragged Wanda to the kitchen so she could introduce the Sokovian to the bright and sugary world of American breakfast cereals. And it was at communal dining table, various cereal boxes littered about them, where Sam and Steve found them, having a silent yet animated conversation over bowls of Frosted Flakes. Sam watched them with interest as he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, tossing one to Steve. Sam looked absolutely wrecked after their run (“ _If that's what you_ wanna _call running_.” _/ “Shut up, Rogers.”),_ whilst Steve had barely worked up a sweat.

“Should we be worried about that?” Sam asked on their way out, eyeing the psychics warily.

Darcy turned to watch them leave and began singing a Salt N Pepa song in her head ([x](http://lovelace-media.imgix.net/uploads/1334/71fb2900-b931-0133-a211-0e55e2be01e5.gif?)). Wanda followed her line of sight and almost snorted milk through her nose, the pair laughing hysterically as Sam and Steve walked away just that little bit faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter exists because Wanda needs more friends, and for there to be zero reference to her fallen twin, the loss of her home - most of her damn country - and her former Stark-focused rage is frustrating. I realise they can't fit *everything* into a single movie, but that's why we have fanfiction. ^_^
> 
> Also... Anthony Mackie's ass. Seriously, I missed entire fight sequences the first time I saw Winter Soldier because of it :P


	9. THE ACCORDS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy's had enough of Tony and Steve bickering about the Sokovia Accords.

Rumours about the Sokovia Accords had been building for weeks and once they were officially a thing it got the whole team buzzing, especially Tony and Steve, who could not agree on anything. They had been bickering nonstop since Secretary Ross dropped the contentious pile of paper in front of the team, and Darcy had done her best to stay out of their way.

With FRIDAY’s help she had read the whole thing. She had her own opinions but it was ultimately superhero business and she wasn’t going to butt in. That was her plan at least, until Tony and Steve started bringing their testosterone fuelled nonsense to whatever part of the compound she happened to be in. She was hiding out in her own personal section of the hanger-sized garage, lying under a suspended engine, when the grating noise of two men throwing tantrums caught up to her again. Darcy let them rant at each other for a full minute before she lost her cool.

“ENOUGH!” she screamed, startling them both. “Maybe Tony's right about America being the land of opportunity, and maybe Steve’s got a point about the machinery of capitalism being oiled with the blood of the workers.”

“I never said that!” Steve rebuked, looking around the room for the source of the voice.

“Lewis,” Tony sighed. “What have I told you about using Simpson quotes to prove your points?”

“I don’t understand that reference.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“Children!” Darcy shouted over their arguing, rolling out from under a suspended car engine. “All I mean to imply is that there are pro and cons for both of your points of view and that you should try and be adults and TALK ABOUT IT.”

“Steve,” Darcy said, pivoting her garage creeper so she was facing him. “I get that you don’t trust governments much these days – with good reason – but 117 countries want this. 117 countries think the Avengers have too much power. 117 countries are scared of the Avengers. You are not the sheriff of the world, you cannot go ignoring international borders in your stars and stripes and imposing your will wherever you go. The world hates America enough as it is.”

“And you,” she said, turning her furious gaze on Tony. “That little voice in your head that you’re listening to is not your conscience; that’s guilt. Do not let guilt be your guide. Yes, you need oversight. Yes, you need people to keep you in check. But you need to think really goddamn hard before signing that accord, because we both know that you don’t like following other peoples’ orders, and the second they go against what you think is right you will be putting on an Iron Man suit and doing whatever you feel needs to be done.”

“Also,” Darcy continued, swinging a wrench around wildly enough that both men were concerned for their safety. “This is bigger than both of your egos, impossible as it sounds. This will affect every remotely ‘super’ individual in the world. And personally, I’m not comfortable with Ross being in charge of this, and I’m sure as hell not okay with idea of the man who spent most of his life trying to create super soldiers - in some not very ethical ways - being responsible for the care of incarcerated supers. And let’s not forget that he TRIED TO KILL BRUCE!”

“Your decisions will have global impact and you need to take that responsibility seriously. But what do I know, I’m just the girl working on her doctorate in Political Science,” she muttered to herself. “Talk it over with the rest of the team and get their thoughts. Talk it over with the UN reps and find an acceptable compromise that works for everyone. And for the love of Frigga get your heads out of your asses!”

“Just to clarify, Steve’s mostly wrong, right?”

“Go away, Tony!” Darcy shouted as rolled herself back under the engine block, calling out to FRIDAY to turn up her music, signalling the end of the conversation.

“Well, I need a drink,” Tony announced, strolling out of the workshop. “What do you say, Rogers? I think I’ve got some of that Asgardian mead stashed away somewhere.”

“Yeah,” Steve murmured, his ears still ringing from Darcy’s dressing down. “Mead would be good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they talked about it like grown ups, and there were compromises and agreements from all sides, and nobody died or was gravely injured fighting amongst their friends. 
> 
> Zemo, who?
> 
> And of course, Tony was deliberately making sure Darcy overheard him and Steve arguing because he wanted her opinion, he just didn't want to have to, you know, admit that he wanted her advice.


	10. STEVE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve misses his friend. Darcy decides to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have ignored most of Civil War, but there's one part - one character - I can't leave out.   
> (Sorry T'Challa, maybe next fic)

Darcy was practically sleepwalking back to her room after a long night of stargazing with Jane, so it took longer than usual for the flickering lights, indicative of someone watching television, to register. The sun wasn’t even thinking of rising yet so Darcy was surprised to find anyone but Jane still up. Darcy wasn’t often surprised these days, so she had to thank sleep deprivation for that. She shuffled her feet as she reached the common room, announcing her presence to whichever of the paranoid and deadly residents was still up. She needn’t have bothered though because Steve was so engrossed in the images on the large flat screen that even his super hearing hadn’t registered Darcy hovering awkwardly behind him. He was watching old news footage from D.C. of the Winter Soldier peppered with random security feed from recent sightings. Darcy watched for a minute before the ache in Steve’s chest became too much for her to bear. She slipped away to her bedroom and fell onto her bed, trying to put up her mental walls so that she could get some sleep. She wanted to help him, she really did, but Steve was generally closed off, and on the few times she had approached him previously, he had declared himself off limits to her ‘meddling.’

She managed to sleep for a few hours before her psychic guilt got the best of her and she sat cross-legged on her bed, meditating on the problem. She passed three hours this way before Wanda came looking for her.

“You missed breakfast,” she said apologetically after letting herself into Darcy’s room after her knocks went unanswered. “Rhodey brought donuts. I saved you one with the sprinkles you like,” she said, placing the plate of chocolatey goodness on Darcy’s bedside table. Wanda sat down at the end of Darcy’s bed and was unimpressed with what she saw. “You haven’t slept. What kept you up?”

“Steve’s sad,” she sighed wearily, rubbing her eyes.

“Oh, my little empath,” Wanda cooed, pinching Darcy’s cheeks. “The Captain is no sadder than the rest of us.”

“It hurts, Wanda,” Darcy whined. “I want to help him. And I think I know how to.”

“You want to find Sergeant Barnes?” Wanda gathered. “And how is that going?”

“Slowly,” Darcy grumbled, taking a bite out of her donut. “I don’t think he’s in the US. Not in the states closest to us, anyway,” she sighed. “My mind just can’t reach out that far. I could probably do it if I asked the Norns for help, but something tells me they’d be all, ‘Quid pro quo, Clarice.’ I’d probably have to give them my first born child.”

“Why do you need the Norns? For more power?”

Darcy nodded.

“Well, why didn’t you just ask me?” Wanda asked brightly, moving to sit opposite Darcy and offering her her hands. “I’m very powerful. I’m a super hero, don’t you know,” she teased.

Darcy laughed, licking the icing off her fingers and wiping her hands on her shirt before gratefully accepted Wanda’s help, humming as the warmth of Wanda’s powers enveloped her hands. ([x](http://www.criticallytouched.com/buffy/images/s7rev_top.png))

 _How does this work?_ Wanda’s voice in Darcy mind enquired.

 _Focus on Steve’s pain, the ache in his chest, his loss, how much he misses his friend,_ Darcy explained as best she could.

 _Oh, poor Captain,_ Wanda sighed as the emotions flowed through Darcy and hit her like a wave.

_I know, right? You see why I need to help him?_

_Yes, yes, you’re always right, shut up. What next?_

_We focus on his feelings and memories of Bucky Barnes, focus on his connection to him. We follow that connection out into the world and we should be able to get a lock on Bucky._

In Wanda’s mind’s eye an image appeared, something of [a cross between a map and a spider web](http://ladybluefox666.tumblr.com/post/147040100603/wavegrower-drops-in-the-desert). In the centre was Steve, and the pattern that radiated out from him was his soul’s connection to a myriad of others, some bright and singing, but so many others had long since faded. Darcy was right, Wanda mused. Sergeant Barnes wasn’t anywhere close by.

_What do you need me to do, Darcy?_

_Punch it, Chewie._

Wanda, having been recently forced to watch several Star Wars movies at Darcy’s insistence, gripped Darcy’s hands tightly and sent her powers surging through them, the red glow speeding across the interlacing web in her mind as it sought out the source of the Captain’s pain. When their combined energies located its target it was like slamming on the brakes at warp speed, and it threw both girls backwards.

“Whoa,” Darcy groaned, rubbing the back of her head. “So that worked.” Darcy glanced up only to be greeted from Wanda’s black stockinged feet. “Wanda!” Darcy scrambled to the end of her bed and peered over, laughing only once Wanda did, her hands going to her head and her butt.

Ouch,” Wanda giggled as Darcy helped her up. It took them a few minutes to settle as the excess energy in their systems dissipated, and then the mood turned sombre. “What do we do now? Should we tell the Captain?”

“No,” Darcy hesitated. “I don’t want to give him false hope. What if Bucky doesn’t want to come back?”

“Then what do we do? I don’t think I could fly myself there, let alone you as well.”

“…I have an idea,” Darcy announced ominously.

 

“Darcy,” Steve called, his brow furrowed as he inspected the flight logs. “Why have you commissioned a quinjet to go to L.A for the weekend?”

“Wanda and I are going shopping,” Darcy replied, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“That’s hardly appropriate usage of a multimillion dollar aircraft,” Steve replied.

“Well, I’m not flying coach, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“I wasn’t. I was simply wondering why you just didn’t drive to a local mall, or catch the train back to New York.”

“Wanda’s favourite goth boutique is having a sale, and they only have the one store in L.A. And they will totally give Scarlet Witch - and her friend - even more discounts,” she added, grinning wildly whilst Wanda fought the urge to hide from her Captain’s stern gaze.

“I can’t let you take a quinjet, Darcy,” Steve sighed wearily.

“Oh, come on!” Darcy pleaded – vocally with Steve, mentally with Wanda. “We are totally owed new outfits. Those fricking lab lackeys have managed to ruin to no fewer than ten tshirts and three pairs of jeans this last year – by fire, chemicals, and on one memorable occasion, zapping them into an alternate dimension.”

“Those squid things in Portland destroyed my boots,” Wanda offered, finally joining the conversation. “And those metal…” she searched for the word whilst making slicing motions with her hands. “…grasshopper things ruined my favourite jacket. And,” she added, laying on her accent to fresh-off-the-boat levels, which always garnered sympathy (yes, it was manipulative, but desperate times) “Darcy has promised that we can go to Disneyland if we have time.”

“And I will totally go and spit on [Walter O’Malley’s](http://electronicsquid.tumblr.com/image/78233776805) grave for you.”

“Fine,” Steve huffed with smile, putting the request through on his tablet much to the girls’ delight. “But no spitting,” he said seriously. “It wouldn’t be right… if I didn’t do it myself,” he added with a smirk.

The girls grabbed their bags and made a run for it before Steve changed his mind. Steve would be heading out on a mission later that day so by the time he realised they had changed their course there would be nothing he could do about it. He would be taking the rest of the soldiers in their retinue with him, giving the other members of their team some much prized downtime. Vision was thankfully still on Asgard, for as much as Wanda liked him, Darcy thought he’d be a giant stick in the mud when it came to stealing a quinjet and flying halfway around the world to confront a brainwashed Hydra assassin. Actually, most of the team wouldn’t approve come to think of it.

As they reached the hanger bay Wanda finally let out a huge sigh. “I hate lying to him.”

“Me too, but he’ll thank us later. Or at least be less mad. Now we just have to redirect the quinjet and convince the pilot not to rat us out.”

“I’m good on the first thing, but I’m still not comfortable on the second. That the Captain would have a harder time to forgiving.”

“I’ll do it,” Darcy said quietly, surprising Wanda.

“But you said you would never…”

“I know. I never wanted to, but this is too important. I think it might be worth crossing that line for. And it wouldn’t be full mind control… Just a little nudge. I’m pretty sure I can do it.”

“’Pretty sure’ will not be good enough once we’re in the air. I’ll do it.”

“No one’s messing with anyone’s mind,” came a cold voice behind them. The women froze and turned find the Black Widow looking just as intimidating in jeans and a leather jacket as she did in her uniform.

“Hiiiiii Natasha… Whaaat are you doing here?” Darcy asked, wincing at her inability to sound remotely innocent of wrong doing.

“Shopping? Really?” Natasha asked, one eyebrow raised in disbelief. “You both do 90% of your clothes shopping online. And Wanda has zero interest in Disneyland. Come on, let’s go,” she said, walking up the quinjet ramp.

“Wait, what?” Darcy asked, chasing after her. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” came the pilot’s voice. “I was hoping you’d tell me.”

“Clint!” Wanda smiled, racing to give him a hug before making grabby hands for his phone. She made herself comfortable in co-pilot chair, flicking through photos of little Nathaniel Pietro with a bittersweet smile.

“So,” Natasha purred, taking a seat. “Where’s Barnes?”

“How? What?” Darcy cried, plopping down in a seat on the opposite side of the quinjet.

“Well, some of us rely on old fashioned spy trade to learn what we want to know,” Natasha remarked pointedly. “You and Wanda have been avoiding Steve, or staring at him like you killed his dog. And your computer use has you accessing Winter Soldier files on a regular basis these past few weeks. I thought I taught you both to cover your tracks better than that.”

“Sorry, Widow,” Wanda smirked, sparing a glance at her frustrated co-conspirator. “We will try harder next time.”

“Come on, Darce,” Clint called back as Natasha sat back with a smug smile on her face. “We’re are we headed?”

“Bucharest,” she said in a huff, buckling her harness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Walter O'Malley is the man responsible for moving the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1958. Steve and Bucky's anger over this has been mentioned in a few fics that I've read. Pretty sure I've mentioned it in one of my WIP's. Anywho, the whole 'spitting on his grave' thing is from a chapter of "Thor Odinson is Not Just A God of Thunder" by Valeris, Chapter 7 to be precise... 
> 
> [“Did you bring up the Dodgers,” He stage whispered, leaning close enough to Darcy’s ear that a stray piece of his hair touched her cheek, “Because I told you, he’s still not over it.”  
> Steve dropped the hand from his face. “I do not want to hear that from someone whom I have personally witnessed--”  
> “Okay, yes,” Bucky agreed, looking uncomfortable, “No need to go into the details, Stevie, I mean, is that really--”  
> “Spit on a man’s grave.” He finished with grim determination. “And it’s not like Walter O’Malley was buried in New York, Buck, you had to go to Los Angeles to do it.”]
> 
> I just thought it was hilarious.


	11. BUCKY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky finds more than plums at the markets.

Bucky wouldn’t say he was at peace, but these past few months were as close to it as he felt he deserved. He was still on guard, mindful of his surroundings, still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but he managed to find joy in the simple things, like walking through local food markets and making conversation with the sellers. He made his purchases and was heading back towards his apartment when he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He did a quick sweep of the area and located the threat on a rooftop across the square. He kept out of the sniper’s sightlines and was making for ‘escape route delta’ when an American voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Hey soldier, want to know your future?”

He glanced at her and instantly dismissed her as a threat. She was dressed in civilian clothes that hid no obvious musculature or weaponry. She was standing behind a beat up folding table, glasses on her face, a deck of cards in her hands.

“He’s not here to take you out,” she said, wincing at her blunt phrasing.

“You’re with the sniper?”

“Yes, and, ow!” she said, wincing again as a voice crackled in her earpiece. “And he prefers the term ‘skilled marksman.’ And like I said, he’s not here to kill you, he’s just there to give me a fighting chance if I need to make a run for it. I hope it won’t be necessary. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Talk fast,” he growled, fighting the urge to keep moving. For some reason he trusted the woman in front of him. Enough to let her keep talking for another minute at least.

“Okay, in the interest of transparency I should first tell you that I have two other friends with me,” she added, gesturing at the markets around them.

Bucky spotted the first woman easily enough, dressed in shades of black and dried blood, perusing a jewellery stall. She looked his way and offered him a comforting smile. There was something strange about her eyes.

“Where’s the second?” he demanded, frustrated when he can’t locate them himself.

“Uhh… honestly, I don’t know. She’s a spy,” the woman shrugged dismissively. “I have a feeling if she doesn’t want to be seen, she won’t be. So,” she added nervously when the silence between them dragged on. “I want to show you something, to explain why I’m here,” she said, reaching slowly into her pocket to retrieve her phone. She placed it on the table before she woke it up, letting him see every button she pressed. She opened up her photo gallery and pushed the phone closer to him encouraging him to go through them. Hesitantly he reached out and swiped a flesh and blood finger across the screen, the image changing from a picture of the two brunette women making a silly faces at the camera to pictures of Captain America – _Stevie_ – and the other Avengers. Not of them fighting, just pictures of them in civilian clothes mostly. Smiling. Laughing. Lounging about. He couldn’t stop the bubble of laughter that escaped him when he saw a picture of Steve sitting behind a huge birthday cake, wearing most of it on his stupid face.

“That was his 95th birthday. Tony spent a fortune on that cake and then Sam went and shoved Steve’s face into it,” the woman tsked, smiling at the memory.

“You’re friends with Steve?”

“I try to be. To be honest, we’re not that close. I think I’m too modern for him. That, and the psychic thing puts him on edge.”

“Psychic?” he asked nervously, edging away from the table. He’d had enough people mess with his head.

“I’m not… I try really hard not to be intrusive. I can do lots of things, but I think, at my core, I’ve always been an empath. I can feel what others are feeling. And when they’re feeling sad, I want to help them feel better.”

“Steve’s sad,” he guessed. The woman nodded.

“Yeah. He misses his best friend. But he doesn’t know I’m here. I didn’t tell him I knew where you were.”

“Why not? What do you want?” he demanded, his patience wearing thin, the urge to bolt growing stronger.

“I want to give you a reading,” she said, fanning her cards out on the grubby table.

“A reading?” he asked irritably.

“Yep, a tarot card reading. That’s all. Just three cards and then I’ll leave. I promise.”

He didn’t say yes, but when he didn’t leave Darcy took it as her cue to continue.

“Could you cut the deck for me and shuffle the cards,” she asked, showing no issue with handing a wanted assassin such a well-loved personal item. She watched closely as he cut the cards with one hand then reluctantly bringing up his metal hand to shuffle them. He left the deck on the middle of the table, appreciative of the fact that she waited until he pulled his hand away before she reached for them. She took the top three cards and placed them face down in front of him.

“[Death](http://freudensteins-monster.tumblr.com/post/142161930916/cargsdoodles-two-more-marvel-tarot-cards-not),” she said before she even turned over the first card. “So many changes in your life, so many new and painful chapters,” she mused, her eyes glazing over as if she was looking into the past. “From boy to man, soldier to prisoner. You were once Steve’s protector and then he underwent a change of his own. He became the protector, but he couldn’t protect you,” she said with an air of sadness. Bucky remembered falling, Steve screaming, the pain and the cold that followed.

“Wasn’t his fault,” he choked out.

“And what followed wasn’t your fault,” she said as if she knew, as if she was there. “Man to machine, soldier to weapon, slave to free man. Almost,” she smiled sadly, turning over the next card. “The Hermit. You’re isolating yourself, to keep yourself safe or to keep others safe, you’re not really sure any more. But you don’t trust yourself, that much is certain. There are words in your head that give your nightmares. You’re punishing yourself. Cutting all ties with those that care about you. And there is someone who cares about you, a friend, a brother, who will be with you until the end of the line.”

Bucky inhaled sharply, blinking away tears. He’d had nightmares about those words too. Words he heard when his knuckles were stained with his best friend’s blood. Words that brought him back from the brink and made him break his programming to pull Steve’s body from the river. Words that had weight and meaning and history, even now.

“Now this,” she said, tapping a finger against the last card. “This card represents your future. I could show it to you, tell you what I see, but I think a man like you, a man that had so little control of his past, might dislike the idea of predestiny. You, James Buchanan Barnes, strike me as a man who wants to choose his own fate. So that’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to let you choose. I can show you this card, and tell you what it means for your future, or you can decide what you want for your future all by yourself,” she smiled warmly, her hand moving over to her phone where the image of Steve still sat glowing brightly on the screen.

** *** **

When the ramp of the quinjet came down Steve was waiting for them with crossed arms and a disapproving glare.

“Where the hell have you been?” he yelled at Darcy, who had the good sense to look ashamed. “You sure as hell weren’t in L.A. where the doctored flight plans said you’d be.”

“We had a mission,” Natasha replied primly, appearing at Darcy’s side.

“ _You_ were supposed to be on R and R,” he shot back accusingly.

“Go easy on the girls, punk. It wasn’t their fault,” a quiet voice from the back of the quinjet reprimanded. “It took longer than expected for me to get my head on straight.”

Steve stood frozen to the spot as his childhood friend walked down the ramp towards him. They stood speechless before each other before a surge of emotion had them wrapping their arms around each other.

 _Ugh, those two emotionally repressed idiots deserve each other,_ Wanda groaned, leaning on Darcy. Darcy stifled a laugh and linked arms with Wanda, leading her back towards the compound. They were both exhausted, having spent the better part of the weekend digging Hydra programming out of Bucky’s head, and were ready to spend a week sleeping it off.

“Now you really do owe us a shopping trip,” Darcy teased, jabbing Steve in the arm playfully as they walked past him.

“Me too,” Natasha added, following them in.

Steve laughed, grabbing Bucky by the shoulders, the pair of them too overwhelmed to form sentences.

“C’mon,” he managed to spit out, leading his best friend away from the quinjet.

 

“Hey!” Clint called from the cockpit. “Is someone going to give me a ride home? Anybody? Just awesome. I’m going to remind you of this when you come looking for your missing quinjet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your best friend, who you thought was dead for the past seventy years, and who was formerly brainwashed to kill you, reappears and he remembers everything, and you... pat him on the shoulder? But sure, go ahead, make out with the girl you've shared three sentences with, it's fine. I'll wait here.
> 
> It doesn't have to be Stucky if you don't want it to be, but come on, a little bit more emotion and a little less 'no homo' bullshit.
> 
> Also, if you're wondering what the third card would be, one of my tarot card consultants said that Steve Rogers would be the sun :)


	12. SON OF COUL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agent iPod Thief, I've been expecting you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilerish if you're not up to date with Agents of SHIELD.

Darcy was rifling through the contents of the communal fridge, on a prolonged break from working on her thesis, when a familiar energy tried to sneak up on her.

“Well, if it isn’t Agent iPod Thief,” she smirked, turning to greet Agent Coulson before returning to the fridge for refreshments.

“Miss Lewis,” he smiled, taking a beer off her hands. “Was it naïve of me to hope you’d be surprised to see me?”

“Have you read my file lately? It takes a lot more than a guy being brought back from the dead with blue alien goo to give me pause these days.”

“I wasn’t aware you had been read into that,” Coulson managed with a minimum of facial tics. “I would have thought it was above your clearance level.”

“I don’t even have a clearance level,” Darcy snorted. “Have you seriously not read my ever expanding file?”

“I have, which is why I’m here. Rumour has it that you’re a psychic,” he said, watching Darcy, reading her non-reaction. “There are no credible studies that support precognition, telepathy, or extrasensory perception, and the last person we encountered who claimed to have these sorts of abilities turned out to be a high-ranking agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. _and_ Hydra, so you’ll forgive me if I’m a little sceptical.”

“Well, you can be sceptical all you like, Son of Coul, but I’m not going to jump through hoops to prove my abilities to you.”

“I’m not asking you to. Based on firsthand accounts from a few of the Avengers, Thor’s claim that you are ‘a servant of the Norns,’ as well as the fact that you frustrated the hell out of Director Fury, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, Miss Lewis.”

“You need my help,” she gathered.

“I was hoping you’d agree to come back to SHIELD headquarters with me and assist us with a personnel issue we’re having.”

“You want me to find Daisy Johnson,” Darcy guessed, offering the former director a sad smile.

“You found Bucky Barnes in Bucharest,” he shrugged.

“I wasn’t aware you had been read into that,” Darcy shot back, earning a smirk from Coulson.

“We have a way of finding things out. Though they’re slightly less impressive than yours. Will you help me?” he asked, need pouring off him.

Darcy picked at the label on her beer, her eyes downcast as she focused on Coulson’s love for the woman he thought of as a daughter, following his connection to her out into the wide world to see if she could find its source.

“You know,” she said after a minute, rubbing her temple. “The reason Wanda and I were able to find Bucky was because on some level he wanted to come home.”

“Are you saying Daisy doesn’t want to come home?”

“I’m saying I don’t think she’s ready. She’s still working through some stuff.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the news reports. Have you?” he snapped, immediately regretting it.

“I won’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do,” Darcy added patiently. “I don’t do mind control.”

“Understood,” he said quietly, bowing his head in defeat. “You’ll let me know if that changes? Daisy being ready, I mean,” he clarified after Darcy stared daggers at him.

“If I sense a disturbance in the force, you’ll be the first person I call,” she promised. “There was something else?” she asked, though it wasn’t really a question.

“You’re a gifted individual, Miss Lewis. And I’ve been known to take an interest in gifted individuals. Daisy’s an Inhuman. We had a team of Inhumans once,” he recalled sadly. “We could use a woman of your talents.”

“So could a lot of other people,” Darcy said bitterly. “I know right now you have the best intentions, but what happens when I prove myself an invaluable source of intelligence? How long before you’re pressuring me to break into people’s minds to get more? If I go down that path I see it ending with me in some sci-fi wetsuit, pumped full of drugs as people force me to tell them everything and anything they want to know.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen.”

Darcy levelled him with unimpressed stare. “If it came to that, I doubt you’d have a choice. Good guys and bad guys alike wouldn’t want to let an asset with my potential get away.”

“I can understand your concerns, Miss Lewis. But I really think you could do some good.”

“Regardless of what Thor says, I’m not a servant of the Norns; I’m my own person, and I won’t be a slave to my abilities. I know I have a duty to do what I can, but I’ve seen what happens to people who sacrifice themselves, mind, body, and soul, for the good fight. It doesn’t end well. I’m just going to have to find a way to live with myself for not doing all that I can. But it’s not like I have the time to save the world,” Darcy added with a small huff of laughter. “As soon as I get my thesis sent off I’m diving headfirst into a psychology course, whilst working on a mechanical engineering apprenticeship in my spare time. Before you know it I’ll be able to help put people back together in all sorts of ways,” she smirked, sparing a glance at Coulson’s left hand. “Which I feel is a pretty decent way to contribute the greater good.”

“I couldn’t agree more, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask you to reconsider.”

“How about this,” Darcy countered. “If you drop this, I’ll organise a big family dinner so your team can meet the Avengers. Just think about it,” she added before Coulson could interrupt. “Your agents could spar with the Avengers, trade tech and ideas with our R and D department... Not to mention, you could shoot the breeze with Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes,” she sang. “You can’t tell me you’re not dying to.”

“Miss Lewis, are you trying to bribe a former director of S.H.I.E.L.D.?” Coulson smirked.

“Is it working?” she teased, even though she already knew the answer.

“What were you thinking for dinner?” Coulson asked after a moment’s pause.

“Lasagna.”

“Homemade?”

“Of course.”

“Garlic bread?”

“Now you’re just insulting me.”

“Throw in a nice bottle of red and you’ve got yourself a deal, Miss Lewis.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrapping things up next chapter. Hope you're enjoying the ride. xoxox


	13. FAMILY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy suffers a personal loss and acknowledges her many gains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter has the highest word count for some reason, the long goodbye if you will :) There's a few more spoilerish type mentions from Agents of SHIELD and a near pathological avoidance of Civil War plot points, with one notable character inclusion (surprise!) 
> 
> Anywho, thank you SO MUCH for reading, pressing the kudos button and/or leaving comments. I really appreciate it. Until next fic. xoxox

Darcy woke with a start and blindly reached for her phone. She had managed to get to bed early for once and it was barely past eleven when the feeling of a cord snapping in her chest woke her from a dead sleep. It was another ten minutes before her phone actually rang and a doctor in Virginia regretfully informed her that Joanne Lewis had just passed away. Breast cancer. Aggressive.

In the hour that followed the call Darcy was numb. She didn’t have a relationship with her mother, not really. They spoke on the phone maybe twice a year and her post-New Mexico visit five years ago was the first time they’d been in the same room since Darcy had moved out of home at 18. But just because they didn’t have a close relationship didn’t mean Darcy held any ill will towards the woman, and certainly didn’t celebrate her death. Darcy didn’t know how to feel but guilt had already started eat away at her; she should have known. But if Joanne Lewis was half the psychic she claimed to be she would have shielded herself from Darcy’s sight, kept her pain hidden. A final kindness for her only child.

Wanda turned up just after midnight with Jane in tow. They helped her pack and Jane held her when she finally broke down. Wanda comforted her with a psychic hug when she joined them on the couch, pushing a cup of tea into Darcy’s hands. A few hours later they escorted to her to a quinjet FRIDAY had arranged for her. They were reluctant to let her go alone, but Wanda had a mission to prep for and Jane was due to go to Asgard with Thor for an extended visit, something that had been pencilled in between major science projects for months now and not something Darcy was willing to let her back out of. It took a dozen assurances that she would be fine and a promise that she would call Wanda every night she was away before they finally let her go.

The pilot dropped her off outside Kansas City just after dawn, where a private car was waiting to take her to her hotel room – all bills footed by Tony Stark. She showered and dressed, forcing herself to eat something with her scalding hot coffee, before going about the business of laying her mother to rest.

The funeral had been an absolute circus that Joanne would have approved of. Darcy found herself loitering on the fringes until she could privately pay her respects to her mother’s expensive headstone. Afterwards she met with her mother’s lawyer, a man for whom the term shark must have been invented, to go over the details of her mother’s will. A lot of her mother’s assets went to her impressive debts but she’d managed to leave Darcy some money, as well as her McMansion, which Darcy promptly donated to a local charity to do with what they wanted, and a few boxes of personal items.

Darcy didn’t open the boxes until she was back in her room at the Avengers facility two days later. There was some jewellery, a few personal knickknacks, and a couple of old family photo albums. There was also a sealed envelope with Darcy’s name scrawled on it in her mother’s perfect handwriting. She tipped the contents into her lap; a deck of well-worn playing cards with a rubber band wrapped around them and a letter from her mother. The cards had belonged to her father, Darcy knew it the moment she held them in her hands. She breathed in the musty smell of the aged cardboard and knew how her father used to take his coffee and what his mother’s matzo ball soup tasted like. In her letter, Joanne told Darcy how she had used those same cards to tell fortunes at parties for a laugh, until she had seen her lover’s death in them. She’d pushed Darcy’s father away then, wanting to spare herself the eventual agonizing heartbreak in favour of immediate but short-lived pain and deeply buried guilt. It was a selfish decision which paved the way for a lifetime of selfish decisions, Joanne had written. The letter wasn’t an apology as such, just an explanation, but Darcy cried over every word of it.

 

A week later, halfway through her Pepper Potts enforced vacation time, there was a knock at Darcy’s door.

“Hey Sam,” she smiled tiredly. “What’s up?”

“Hey Darcy-doll,” he smiled back, teasing her with a nickname Bucky used liberally. “Just came by to see how you were doing.”

“I’m okay,” she replied, biting back a sigh. “Being locked out of the labs and workshops means I’ve had time to work on my thesis and catch up on my psychology reading. And my laundry.”

“And how’s that going? The homework, not the laundry. Workload’s not too much?” he pressed leaning on her doorframe.

“No, it’s good. I mean, yeah, it’s a lot, but I’m handling it. FRIDAY’s pretty on top of managing the labs, so outside of explosions, the occasional miniature interdimensional portal, and naptime, I can get a lot done during work hours.”

Sam smiled and nodded, shifting awkwardly in the doorway.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Darcy winced, offering him an apologetic smile. “I just…”

“You need your space, I get it. But it’s only right that I give our favourite empath a taste of her own medicine.” Sam laughed as Darcy stuck her tongue out at him. “You ever want to talk to someone, I’m always around. Or I could recommend a grief counsellor or a therapist, if that’s something you feel you need.”

Darcy thanked him with a hug but stared at him questioningly when she pulled away.

“Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

“Nothing bad,” he assured her. “I just wanted to let you know that Coulson and his team touched down a little while ago. They’re currently getting a tour of the labs and their scientists are giving ours a run for their money.”

“Oh, shit. I totally forgot about that.”

“It’s okay, we know you’ve had a lot of your plate. But, if you were feeling up to it, Coulson was kind of hung up on the whole homemade lasagna thing. It’s cool if you’re not, Steve and Bucky offered to cook lunch instead. Coulson’s geeking out at the thought of it but as someone who’s had Steve’s cooking before, and respects his tastebuds too damn much, I wanted to low-key beg you to help.”

Darcy laughed out loud before groaning into her hands remembering the first and last time she ate a meal prepared by the nonagenarians.

“I totally understand,” she smirked. “I’ll just get cleaned up and head over to the kitchen to offer some adult supervision.”

“Thank you, thank you!” Sam cried, clasping his hands together. “I owe you one.”

Darcy waved him off with a smile and closed the door. She showered and dressed quickly, making it over to the kitchen in time to hear Steve and Bucky arguing over the acceptable ingredients in an Irish stew.

“Bucky, ease up or I’ll have FRIDAY cut your access to the Food Network. Steve, stop being such a purist; Irish Stew can be more than ‘just’ meat and potatoes. Yes, yes, no, yes… Bucky, no, put that back,” she scolded as she went through the mess of ingredients littered on the kitchen bench.

Darcy oversaw the terribly important operation, pointing them to back to the recipe whenever they started to stray too far from it, and pulling Bucky away when his metal arm developed a mind of its own (he insisted) and made a grab for the chilli flakes. Once the stew was done and left to cook, and the boys had gotten the kitchen spotless again, Darcy got started on an Avengers-sized tray of lasagna. She was joined soon after by Wanda and Vision, the former commandeering a section of the kitchen to make a batch of her grandmother’s pierogi’s while the latter studied her movements closely. When it was close to serving time Sam found his way to the kitchen, hugging the chefs and staking out a place in front of the oven before Darcy put him to work setting the table. FRIDAY put the word out when everything was ready and Coulson and his team were escorted to the dining table by Steve, Bucky, and Natasha.

“Hey Darcy-doll,” Bucky exclaimed excitedly, holding up his formerly metal arm. “Look what Fitz made me,” he beamed, letting her touch the synthetic covering. “And check this out,” he said, clenching his fist just so, laughing as Darcy jumped back at the sight of an energy shield emanating from his forearm.

“Is everyone getting shields now? Where’s mine?” Sam complained loudly.

“You’ve got wings,” Bucky deadpanned. “Why do you need a shield too?”

“You’ve got a metal arm,” Sam countered, crossing his arms across his broad chest.

“I was brainwashed and tortured for seventy years. I deserve nice things,” he shot back, glancing at Darcy for confirmation as she walked past him to set a tray of lasagna on the table.

“That’s right, Bucky. You enjoy your shiny new toy and ignore the mean flying man.”

“Teacher’s pet,” Sam muttered, earning him a rude gesture from Bucky’s prosthetic limb.

“That’s enough, you two,” Steve sighed, taking a seat at the table.

“It’s smells amazing, Miss Lewis,” Coulson beamed, delighted to be a part of the craziness that was the Avengers interpersonal relationships for the day.

“It should taste amazing too. Dig in, everyone.”

 

Tony arrived fashionably late with a teenager in tow, his usual swagger subdued as it was whenever he was in the same room as Bucky. Darcy squeezed Bucky’s arm as the two exchanged wary glances. Tony was not okay with the man who killed his parents living under a roof he paid for, but after their initial confrontation he was slowly coming around. Darcy accredited it with Tony increasing his appointments with his masseuse, who looked suspiciously like a lauded former SHIELD therapist, to twice a week.

“Everyone, this is Peter Parker, my favourite intern.”

“Hey!” Darcy cried, feigning indignation.

“You were upgraded to my favourite apprentice last year, stop crying. And Peter’s more of a mentee, really.”

“And what are you mentoring him in exactly?” Natasha asked, gleaning all the information she could from the gawky teenager’s body language.

“Parker’s all about the hero stuff. And the science stuff. And with great power, blah blah blah, I thought I’d better take the kid under my wing before he hurt himself.”

“I was doing fine,” Peter argued.

“You were fighting crime in your pyjamas,” Tony countered.

“It’s nice to meet you, Peter,” Darcy interjected before the bickering intensified. “I’m Darcy.”

“Nice to meet – hey!” Peter yelped as Tony threw his hands over his eyes.

“Don’t make eye contact with her, she’s a psychic. She can read your internet browsing history with a look.”

“I’m not really that kind of psychic,” Darcy shot back tiredly, trying to give the blushing Peter her best reassuring smile.

“I am,” Wanda offered with a wink causing him to blush anew.

“Good god, go take a seat next to the other spider before you embarrass me.”

“Huh, so you’re Spider-Man,” Natasha remarked, smiling at the kid like he was more of a fly.

“Uh, yeah. That’s me.”

“You do good work. But you need training. I could help.”

“Really?” he asked nervously.

“Of course. Anything for a fellow arachnid,” she replied, sharing a smug smile with Agent May.

“Kid, I hope your superpower is accelerated healing, because you’re gonna need all the help you can get,” Mack scoffed.

“I manage.”

“Uhuh,” Mack hummed, unconvinced.

Peter glanced at Tony who gave him a smirk that said ‘show ‘em what you’ve got.’ Peter smiled back and walked over the nearest wall. To the amazement to almost everyone at the table he then proceeded to crawl up the wall until he was clinging to the ceiling above his seat. There was a hiss and a splat and then Peter was lowering himself into his chair using an honest to god spider web.

“Oh my, that was astounding!” Gemma Simmons cheered. “What’s the nature of your enhancement? Are you an Inhuman? If not, what factors caused your enhancement? I’d love to run some tests…”

“Simmons,” Coulson warned gently. “Reel it in a little.”

“Yeah, Jemma. You’re so excitable. It’s not even all biological,” Fitz snickered. “There’s definitely some tech involved, judging by the sound of the pressurised gas release when he dropped from the ceiling. You’ve got some sort of device that releases the, ah, um, the web, yeah? Come on, let’s see it.”

Peter pulled up his sleeves to reveal two metal gauntlets affixed to his wrists. With a lightning fast hand gesture a line of webbing shot across the table and stuck to the side of Jemma’s glass. With another flick of his wrist the webbing whipped backwards and the glass was in his hand.

“Amazing,” Fitz muttered, already inventing better versions of the gauntlets in his head. “If you just…”

“I’m sorry, but we’ve got a rule,” Steve interrupted. “No science experiments at the dinner table.”

“Well, that rules you out, Capsicle,” Tony smirked.

“I think that rules out half the room,” Bucky added, causing a ripple of laughter to wash over the table.

The good mood continued for another fifteen minutes, the conversation flowing easily between the two teams, until there was a loud text notification. Coulson’s team stiffened, staring at their now-unofficial leader expectantly. Phil glanced at his forearm, tapping and sliding a finger over the illuminated screens that appeared on his artificial skin. His eyes flicked over to Darcy who gave him a small smile but nothing more.

“We’ve got a hit,” Coulson announced.

“Where are you headed?” Natasha asked.

“Los Angeles,” Coulson confirmed.

“Can I get a ride?”

“I don’t know that we’re going to have time for a pit stop,” he replied apologetically.

“I wasn’t asking you to stop,” Natasha replied, earning a smirk from the pilot.

“Wheels up in five,” May announced, getting to her feet. Natasha and the rest of Coulson’s team followed her lead.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality. I had a lovely time,” Jemma beamed.

“Ditto,” Mack added. “I’ll be back to check out that flying car of yours soon.”

“Can’t wait,” Darcy smiled.

The two agents headed for their quinjet, which left Coulson waiting on Fitz, who was fidgeting in front of his half-finished meal.

“Fitz? What’s the hold up?”

“What about the food?”

“There’s snacks on the quinjet, and we’ll stop for burgers… after.”

“No, but… if we… if the mission goes well, she’s going to be really upset she didn’t get to have stew made by Captain America.”

“…Fitz has a point,” Coulson said, turning to Darcy.

“Wanda, can you grab some tupperware?” Darcy laughed.

Fitz and Peter almost jumped back from the table as Wanda’s eerie strands of magic floated into the kitchen cupboards to retrieve three tupperware containers and then proceeded to fill them with a little of each of the foods on offer.

“There you go,” Wanda said cheerily as her magic handed the containers to a bewildered Fitz.

“Um, thanks. That’s not going to affect the taste, is it?”

“Fitz.”

“Right. Thanks. Going. Bye,” the scientist mumbled, shoving the containers into his bag and running after Jemma.

“Thanks again for the invite, Miss Lewis. We’ll have to do this again some time,” he said shaking Steve’s hand before making his way down the table. “Mr Stark,” he said with a nod.

“Agent,” Tony smirked, watching the older man leave.

“Did that dude seriously have a phone in his arm?” Peter whispered excitedly.

“I could put telecommunications in prosthetics if I wanted to, but it’s just tacky,” he said, mostly to convince himself that he was still at the cutting edge of all things high tech.

“I wouldn’t mind a phone in my arm,” James said absently as he toyed with the covering on his arm, smiling to himself as the artificial skin moved up and down the metal limb when he touched various pressure points Fitz had installed.

“Would you cut that out?” Sam asked irritably, throwing a piece of carrot at Bucky, who caught it and popped it into his mouth with a smug grin.

“Enough!” Steve ordered in his exasperate dad voice before they started a full on food fight. 

Darcy laughed out loud earning concerned looks from her friends. She smiled at them, the family she had made for herself, and knew that she was well and truly done hiding away in her room. She took out her phone and sent off a request for an appointment with SI Medical for a check-up and a breast exam before glancing across the table to get Sam’s attention.

“Hey Sam, can you pencil me in for some one on one time this week?”

“How’s breakfast tomorrow sound? We can go into town and get some of Gretchen’s blueberry pancakes.”

“How can you think about food when you’re in the middle of this feast?”

“Hey, I’m a simple guy. The only thing I want to know about my future is where my next meals coming from.”

Darcy laughed. She really couldn’t argue with that. She put a hand to her temple and scrunched up her face in mock concentration before smiling brightly.

“What do you know,” Darcy grinned. “Blueberry pancakes.”

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I haven't involved all the CA:CW characters in this fic (and I didn't even give Vision any dialogue. Whoops.) but I had to bring Peter Parker into the fold. This is so much better than Tony Stark recruiting an awestruck child soldier into his lovers quarrel with Steve. That was a dick move, Tony. Just saying.
> 
> Oh, and Natasha's hitching a ride to somewhere over Clint's farm so she can bring the missing quinjet back. :P
> 
> There's a segment near the end, when Coulson gets the message about Daisy, that was an after thought. Once I put it in there I kind of wanted to take it out again as I felt Darcy looking around at her family would have been better with *everybody* still at the table. But I reread it a few times and I liked it too much to remove it. I hope you liked it to. xoxox


	14. POST CREDIT SCENE

The klaxon sounded and the Avengers assembled elsewhere, and Tony conveniently decided to return Peter to his "smoking hot aunt" shortly after, leaving Darcy to clear the table by herself. She ferried dirty plates to the kitchen, loaded the dishwasher, and returned to the table with a can of bug spray in hand.

"Show yourself, or your buddies get it," she warned wielding the can in a threatening manner at a line of ants circling the remnants of Bucky and Sam’s almost food fight. Darcy reeled backwards despite herself when a man appeared in the middle of the table.

"Whoa! Easy! Put the can down!"

"Get off the table!" Darcy shot back.

"Uh, hi. I'm Scott," he waved, removing his mask once he'd moved to stand on the nearest chair.

_[Of for the love of... Scott! We’ve talked about this; don’t identify yourself! Is ‘Ant-Man’ really that hard for you to remember?]_

"Darcy," she replied lowering the can. "You know, if you're looking for Howard Stark's bunker of super old stuff you're in the wrong building, right?" she added, eyebrow arched in challenge.

"I know, but... garlic bread," he said lamely, holding a piece between his fingers.

_[Did he just say ‘garlic bread’? Dad, where’s my suit? I’m going to fly down there and kick his ass myself.]_

"Sit down," Darcy laughed. "I'll get you a plate."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. NOW it's finished. I think.


End file.
